Too many Amphipods and copepods

[MrCote]

Im sorry I cant get any pics for everyone who has been asking for pics. I dont have a good camera for taking aquarium pictures and Im not that good at it. And I gave it a couple days of observation before I posted this question and I tested my water parameters and everything was looking good.
Nitrates-0
Nitrites-0
ammonia-0
ph-8.2
temp- 78
salinity- 1.025
calcium- 450

for lighting I have a 254 watt T5 fluorescent fixture. I have 4 bulbs. 2 actinic and 2 daylights. For flow I have about 200 gph coming up from my sump and an 850 GPH koralia. The tank is about a year old but about 5 or 6 months ago I made a few major changes that kind of restarted the cycle a bit. I changed out my old sand and added a sump. The flatworm and nudibranch I just noticed so I had no idea they were ever in the tank. There are no fish in my tank yet because my 8 weeks of letting my tank sit to get rid of ich just finished so i need to go buy my radiata lion as soon as I find one. And I have a cleaner shrimp in the tank right now, 2 turbo snails, about 20 red legged reef hermit crabs, and 2 sand sifting stars.

 

[JohnK]

I don't think any of us would be able to get really good pod pics.

FWIW, there are many many different kinds of nudi and only a very few are suitable for keeping in our tanks safely. The old rule of thumb on nudis is if you don't know for sure what exactly it is, assume it's bad.

On the flatworm, if it's 1/4" long it's most likely harmless or relatively harmless. The only exception I can think of would be acro eating FWs, but if it's not on an acro, it's very unlikely that it's an acro eater. There are also giant polycad FWs, but they get much larger and tend to have a leopord spot/squamosa mantle like pattern (they eat snails, but I don't think they would be after your yellow polyps).

The FW you are seeing is probably a common red/brown nusiance FW (nusiance because they multiply to large populations and are ugly to look at), fully harmless non - photo synthetic FWs that are usually transluscent and cause not harm or headaches, or possibly one of the coral specific comensual FW that hang out on specific corals (usually leathers, LPS or shrooms) and don't generally seem to hurt anything.

Summary of post; Nudi could easily be preying on your polyps. FW, almost no chance it/they are eating the polyps.

*also FWIW IME sometimes yellow polyps just crash out for no obvious reason even though they are usually hardy.

 

[stingythingy45]

So what's one your most important parameters.....alk?

 

[MrCote]

I cant find any alkalinity or magnesium test kits anywhere. I got some Mardel 5 in 1 test strips which cost me $20 which tests alkalinty and magnesium and according to that my alkalinity and magnesium are good. But It doesnt give exact numbers and it doesnt seem very reliable. As soon as I come across some good alkalinity and magnesium test kits ill be sure to get them. I also use red sea Coral Pro salt which supposedly brings all levels to where they should be which has proven to be true for everything else. But just to be safe ill still buy the test kits. Also I feel much better now that I dont have thousands of coral eating monster pods (some of them are huge). Ive heard that yellow polyps grow like weeds and are difficult to kill. And they are the only coral that died which is what concerned me. And seeing pods hanging out on them but that just must have been coincidence.

And John, the flatworm I have is completel see through. The only reason I noticed it was because it was moving and the some what whitish dot in the center of it but it is most likely harmless in my tank because I dont have acros. I only have fluorescents so unforstunately I cant keep SPS